Read and Edit me! Open invitation to edit this essay!

Hi Gaians (I can call us that now right, since we're not really Zaadzsters any more, unless you say once a Zaadzster, always a Zaadzster..lol) Anyway, this is my application essay to graduate school. I am applying to the MA program in Sustainable Development at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vermont. The app deadline is March 1st. I would love if it anyone would read and edit it, leave me your comments. This is an open invitation. I have to answer three question (they're in there) and it has to be 1500 words (not much more if at all). The essay is below. I will read and respond to your feedback, so long as it is constructive and well-intended. I haven't tried this before, but in the spirit of the open-source and co-creation, help co-create this essay if it interests you! namaste Andrew Andrew Utman January 21.2008 SIT Graduate Application Essay For the Program in intercultural service, leadership, and Management • Please describe an intercultural interaction you have had and how it has been important and significant in your life. How can you use that experience to contribute to SIT’s learning environment? For a week in late June of 2006, I left my life in Prescott to travel one hundred fifty miles to the northeast to the Dine Reservation, Hopi Provisional Land. I was a part of a party of folks who had gathered from all over North America to support the Dine people living on the HPL in resistance to the order of the Hopi Tribal Council and the Bureau of Indian Affairs to leave it. The people we worked with were mostly elderly, mostly women, and had lived on the land they called Big Mountain, on Black Mesa, all their lives. Many of their families had lived in the area for seven generations or more. Working at three different sites framed the majority of my time on Black Mesa that week. I had traveled to Black Mesa previously on a few occasions. A couple of classes I took at Prescott College crossed over the Mesa, or near it to get to the San Juan River, or Colorado. I also had visited the Hopi Mesas on the southern tip of Black Mesa when I was eleven with my family for a week because of strong personal interest in Hopi culture. This time, I was here to work the Dine, or Navajo people, living on what had been their reservation land until the BIA supported a move by the Hopi Tribal Council to expropriate the land from the Dine living in the Big Mountain area for the sake of the Peabody Coal Company’s operation of a major coal mine in the area. We spent the week at a few different sites where we performed different varieties of work for people. The first site we worked at belonged to a grandma (an woman Dine elder) for whom we chopped wood, and herded sheep. She was very nice to us and fed us soup and bread, though she spoke no English. Our veteran volunteer and guide for the week translated for us. She was very old, and did almost all chores for herself, even though she was so old. We fetched water from a spring several miles away for her. Later on we took down an old hogan and transported all the beams to another homesite. We helped build fencing, and herded more sheep. Near the end of the week at a third homesite we took down some old pens and sheared the wool from some sheep. Not having done most of this kind of work before, I had a lot to learn, and experienced mixed success. The people were all very gracious and patient, showing us how to do things right, and forgiving our mistakes. I really enjoyed the whole week, and reflected on my time spent there extensively. My experience on the mesa showed me how determined indigenous people can be about staying on their homelands and I came to believe that the Dine do deserve to stay on their land. I came to see how vested political interests can cause one tribe to turn against another for profit’s sake, and this often accompanies ecologial damage from unsustainable resource extraction and pollution. It became clear to me that while the area does need economic development badly, such development should enhance cultural vitality and ecological balance rather than take place at the detriment of the people and the lands they depend on to live. My experience on Black Mesa as well as numerous other fascinating intercultural interactions contribute invaluably to my view of the world, and of the kind of work we can do to improve things. I would most excitedly share this experience in as much detail as would be profitable to help yield perspective on multicultural work. The fact that I showed up on the Mesa for a week as a volunteer worker will lend itself especially well to the discussion of sustainable development issues in developing countries and with indigenous people. I believe such an experience will undoubtedly prove to be a worthwhile contribution to the SIT learning environment because of the emphasis on multicultural learning. • What effect have intercultural experiences had on your education and career choices? Intercultural experiences have motivated me to choose courses which included opportunities to learn more about other cultures, especially my outdoor education courses where I studied natural and cultural history. I learned about the ancient peoples indigenous to the Verde valley, the Superstition Mountains, the Grand Canyon, the San Juan River basin, the Mazatzal Mountains and the Prescott area through several different courses. To this point I still wish to learn a lot more from intercultural experiences, especially one’s outside of the US. I have been exposed through personal study to a number of cultures outside of the US, and have maintained a strong interest in deepening my knowledge and experience of other cultures. I have yet to allow intercultural experiences to play a leading role in determining my career choices, however, attending SIT and serving in the PeaceCorps is the way that intend to change that. I could travel on a personal basis as I am able, but I wish to have a really in depth experience of another culture while simultaneously preparing for a career where I can make a difference for other people, both abroad, and back here in the States. Having left school with a persistent desire to learn from encountering different cultures, I am motivated to study at SIT, and join the PeaceCorps thereafter to complete my Masters Practicum. • What is the relationship between your personal/career goals and the mission and goals of SIT? How can SIT help you to further define your goals? My personal goals include expanding my understanding of who we are as a collection of diverse human cultures and individuals, and through that to catalyze both an increased personal understaning of my own cultural roots and identities, but also to cultivate a deeper respect and appreciation for who others are, culturally, and individually. I feel like achieving both pushes me to be a better leader, and person because I get to partake of a richer world of human possibility, and because increased understanding and appreciation allows me to forge stronger connections with others in all aspects of social life. On a professional level I see the personal gains of cultural experiences translating into an increased capacity on my part to understand, relate to, communicate with, listen to, and ultimately assist others of multicultural backgrounds in achieving shared goals, such as sustainable development. I intend to be living abroad helping others develop their societies in ways which compliment the local traditions, meet real local needs, fit into a globalized economic and political context, and include the health of local ecological systems simultaneoulsy. This is how I see sustainable development. I feel called to honor an opportunity to contribute my energy toward realizing this sort of work, because, millions of people have unmet needs year after year, because millions of acres of wildlands are squandered by inefficient and insensitive development pressures, and because we are all in this together; the activities of a few, definitely impact us all. I see practicing sustainable development, or a similar field as a fantastic opportunity to practice a right livelihood in a time when such activity can be so beneficial to many people, and nonhuman beings. We have this incredible opportunity to intentionally engage people who seek to have prosperous economies and abundant lives, and not only can we help them with sound planning and organizing, but we can also do this in a conscious way that meets multiple goals simultaneously. The opportunity to work in that sort of a context is a historical novelty still only emerging, and we are well served by taking it as far as we can go. I intend to be among those on the front lines of discovery and innovation in this broad field of praxis. SIT’s mission to prepare students to be effective intercultural leaders, professionals and citizens is directly aligned with my personal and professional goals, and that is why I am applying to study with you all. I looked around for who was doing the sort of work I want to be doing in the kind of ways that seem to work best, and SIT has come up as my top choice. The way you all fulfill your mission through self-directed, well-framed, supported and prepared field practice as a method of learning is the best I can imagine, and fits with my needs and preferences as a learner and professional-in-training. Global citizenship is practicing the values of seeking to make common cause with others everywhere, because of our shared humanity, and I definitely see myself as someone who is ready to more fully step into my status as a global citizen. I see SIT’s graduate programs as giving me the chance to acquire the knowledge, skill, experience and recognition I need to find and thrive in a position of leadership and service. I am really looking forward to being there as a student, and having all my expectations exceeded, as I am confident they will be.